Safety of Central Valley Road questioned after pedestrian on way to school hit

Fairview Junior High School students cross the busy Central Valley Road at Conifer Drive on Wednesday afternoon. That morning, a teenager was hit at this crosswalk, raising concerns about students safety in the area.
LARRY STEAGALL / KITSAP SUN

CENTRAL KITSAP - For the second time in less than two months, a high school student was hit by a car while walking to school.

A 17-year-old girl is in serious condition in the intensive care unit at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle after being hit by a truck Wednesday morning, according to hospital spokeswoman Susan Gregg-Hanson.

The Olympic High School student was hit by a 1993 Toyota pickup shortly after 7 a.m. while in a crosswalk near Fairview Junior High School along Central Valley Road near Conifer Drive. The student was walking with her brother, who is also a student at Olympic.

A 62-year-old Bremerton woman traveling south hit the girl while she was crossing from east to west, according to Kitsap County Sheriff's Office spokesman Scott Wilson. The woman told deputies she didn't see the girl in the crosswalk.

The girl was flown to Harborview because of the severity of her injuries, Wilson said.

The driver had just left Fairview Junior High, so traffic investigators do not believe she was traveling at excessive speeds. They also do not believe drugs or alcohol were involved, Wilson said.

Additional counselors were made available Wednesday at Olympic for students and staff, said Central Kitsap School District spokesman David Beil.

Saying the district was saddened to hear about the accident, Beil said district officials want to remind drivers and pedestrians to be smart when traveling the roads during the dark winter months. Parents also should talk to their children about pedestrian safety, he said.

"Student safety is our top priority," Beil said.

The section of road where the student was hit is a high-traffic area for children. Three schools are located within a short distance of each other, including two elementary schools and the junior high. Olympic also is nearby, and high school students travel Central Valley to get to and from school.

Parents and neighbors have repeatedly asked the county to do more to improve pedestrian safety in this area over the years.

One parent, Candace Vaal, recently sent a letter to the county asking more be done.

"Several times a week, I see vehicles pull around onto the shoulder to avoid waiting for cars making left-hand turns," Vaal wrote in her letter about Central Valley Road. "At the light, vehicles that don't want to wait their turn pull onto the shoulder to make right-hand turns. This is where the children, not to mention other pedestrians, must walk."

Vaal asked the county do more to make it clear that driving on the shoulder is illegal. In the eight years she has lived off Central Valley, Vaal has seen cars speed by with no regard to pedestrians on the shoulder, she said. She would like the county to add traffic calming devices to slow down people.

Her two elementary school-age children walk the road to get to school and she worries regularly about their safety, she said.

Central Valley Road is on the county's radar, County Commissioner Josh Brown said. There are plans to add sidewalks in the near future to Fairgrounds Road from its intersection with Central Valley Road to Nels Nelson Road, he said.

The improvements are on the county's six-year transportation improvement plan. Work is slated to begin in 2015 and 2017.

"The area that's been the highest on my radar screen is the intersection of Fairgrounds and Central Valley (roads)," Brown said.

Additional safety improvements would extend from there, including more sidewalks and other improvements to Central Valley, he said.

The county has made efforts to increase safety along the roadway, including posting two sets of flashing signs to notify drivers of the 20-mph speed limit during school hours and lengthening the crosswalk bars to 9 feet from 6 feet to make them more visible to drivers, county traffic engineer Jeff Shea said.

The crosswalks also are marked to make them more visible to drivers, he said.

"We have put a lot of effort into letting the motoring public know there are schools in the area," Shea said.

County commissioners and public works officials have plans to talk about what else can be done to improve safety, he said.

Just before 7 a.m. Oct. 26, Cassidy Holtzman, 15, a sophomore at South Kitsap High School, was hit by a car as she crossed Jackson Avenue. She died a few days later.